Powerful Goddess Portraits

One can collect

only a few seashells on the beach,

and they are more beautiful if they are few.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Travel and Leisure ranks 3 of the Philippines 8,000+ islands among the top 5 in all of Asia.  Having had to live most of my adult years raising a family away from the turquoise seas, coconut trees and soft sandy beaches of my childhood, I keep memories of these far away pleasures alive with seashells around the house and in the studio, a handy prop for abstract studies in chiaroscuro.

In her classic, Gift From The Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh parallels her favorite shells with essays on the spirals of life, youth and age, relationships and marriage, solitude and contentment, commitment and creativity. This book is a true gift to be re-read and pondered at different stages in our lives. It opens:

I began these pages for myself, in order to think out my own particular pattern of living, my own individual balance of life, work and human relationships. But as I went on writing and talking with other women, young and old, with different lives and experiences – those who supported themselves, those who wished careers, those who were hard working housewives and mothers and those with more ease – I found that my point of view was not unique. Even those whose lives had appeared to be ticking imperturbably under their smiling clock-faces were often trying, like me, to evolve another rhythm with more creative pauses in it, more adjustment to their individual needs, new and more alive relationships to themselves as well as others.

Enjoy the rest of summer with these shells on landscapes that might as well be sand dunes.  Click on “Leave a Comment” (top left) to share your favorite gifts from the sea of life.

xoxox

xoxox